A bit sort of nebulous, but then so is the question and the concept of identity. One might ask, is the silly answer to a silly question, not sure but as someone who has reinvented their identity at least once, it made some sense. See for yourselves.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/02/why-don...

Thanks for everyone who commented, I read all your words of wisdom.

I've been thinking about this for some long time and today I enrolled for the first module of my Environmental Science degree, although it doesn't actually start until October. I am now officially an undergraduate (again) and will be for the next six years after which I hope to be able to call myself an ecologist, albeit somewhat poorer financially, I expect to have achieved a long term goal and therefore will have a smug grin on my face for weeks.

Courtesy of The Telegraph, cartoonist Matt, one of the best I've ever seen, shows what those of us who live as women have to cope with in terms of making a living

Sorry folks, not feeling very well so taking an early night. I have managed to do some work on the new story which stands at 4000 words so far. I hope normal service will be resumed tomorrow.

Angharad

The Guardian have been running a series of great actors performing vignettes of Shakespeare speeches. My favourite so far Joanna Vanderham doing a speech from Romeo and Juliet or Ayesha Dharker as Titania, probably because I'd loved to have played these parts and I'm more the size of the sugar plum hippo from Fantasia than a faerie queen or a lovesick adolescent. The boys are good too. If the link works, do have a look or a listen, they are brilliant.

I'm tempted to suggest this is what happens if you eat more than you exercise, but it's self evident. Also my hair is so fine and grey it doesn't always show very well in photos, then none of me is photogenic but I've lived with that for a long time.

This young woman is trying to make it as a competitive cyclist in Afghanistan not the easiest place to be female let alone one who wants to race bicycles. She's only sixteen but listening to her talking to someone from the BBC, I wish her really well in her life and hobby. She wants to study medicine in Germany.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03g3w80

A minute or so's clip about Evie who is transgendered but is body positive. She does highlight some of the more crass questions we get asked in this short film.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/bodypositive/35345075

From the Daily Mirror a story from Italy about a transgender woman who has spent over fifty thousand pounds on plastic surgery and looks rather sad to my thinking, especially the lip implants which look ridiculous and she plans on more! I'll stick to buying books. Amazingly, her wife has stayed with her.

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/transgender-woman-spends...

I wrote Trish's rap quite spontaneously then had to try and organise some rhythm to it. It's not a medium I enjoy as few of the exponents of it don't possess clear diction and it tends to sound like a series of rhythmic groans. However, I can accept like all presentation forms, it isn't easy to get it to balance in meter and rhyme. I doubt I shall try it again, which might please some of my regular readers, but felt the inclusion of it given the abilities of the character involved was a distinct possibility. However, she is much cleverer than the poor old dear who reports on them.

I got a bit distracted playing with my new BlackBerry playbook (second hand variety) my fingers didn't always do what I wanted them to do, or so it thought. Even so it has a bigger brain than I do, and certainly a bigger memory

There is no cure for stupidity, how do these people manage to reach maturity?

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/us-town-rejects-solar-pa...

It reminds me of the woman who wrote to a paper complaining that switching to daylight saving was shortening her life or another who refused to wear her glasses in case it wore the lenses out.

I hope to do one for tonight but tomorrow is doubtful as I'm going to see my daughter and may not have time. Just thought I'd better warn y'all.

Bettina Rheims best photograph of a transgender sex worker from the 1980s in Paris. Quite an interesting piece especially as it suggests that most of them are now probably dead, presumably from horrible diseases. It struck a chord with me because I transitioned about the same time. Things are so different now.

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/dec/03/bettina-...

Oh, and it happens to be my birthday, today.

Angharad

A document from the UK government about the law as it stands for transgender customers and the requirements of the law to businesses providing services to them such as shops or banks. It's written in very simple language and shows that discrimination direct or otherwise is illegal against a person with a protected characteristic of gender reassignment, viz moi. (And there's me thinking I was just an ordinary woman these days - another illusion shattered).